Posted
by
ScuttleMonkey
on Saturday March 04, 2006 @10:41PM
from the can't-go-if-the-money-isn't-there dept.

jd writes "Barely a day after NASA chief Dr. Griffen swore blind that projects might be frozen but not cancelled due to the new priorities and budget constraints, news comes of a new asteroid mission that has been cancelled due to the new priorities and budget constraints - something Dr. Griffin did not mention in his earlier comments. The visit to two asteroids, short about $90 million, was completely abandoned according to NASA, with no possibility of revival. In consequence, smaller missions are reportedly feeling at much greater risk."

Probably not, because history has soon that whenever a president is in some form of political trouble, they will often trot out "visions" of American returning to space with such regularity you would think they were smoking Peyeote, but they are shelved once the crisis passes or a new president takes over.

This project has experienced a problem with cost overruns, which was the real reason it was cancelled, not because of the CEV. Granted, had the budget not need to flex to push CEV development forward, the cost overruns might have been allowed, but there is more involved here than just human spaceflight goals affecting science.

Well the Shuttles were a bad idea.. And attempt to look new and modern, while trying to meet cold war requirements. If you've looked up the info on the upcoming replacement its very cost effective and well thought out.

The shuttles were a great idea, when they were made. Nowadays they're gigantic, dangerous, unwieldy things with ancient technology. We need to stop wasting money trying to fix them and just abandon the whole thing, working on this replacement instead.

Or come up with some other neat, small, and cheaper things like Stardust. Now that was cool.

Actually no, a good bit of the shuttle design went to the airforce requirement that it be able to pluck soviet satallies out of orbit then do a quick landing onto a runway strip. This requirement was never actually used (atleat according to all records public today) and ended up costing us unimagined amounts of money in the long run. Most accounts state that the shuttle would have had a completly different design otherwise.

Don't know for soviet ones but the shuttle has bring back to earth a few things.
One was a satellite to test the effects of space environment to different materials. It was supposed to stay in orbit for 6 month, stayed there 2 years.

Actually the Space Shuttle was a damn good idea and the concept is still a damn good idea. If it sucked so bad then why are people still considering a reusable delivery system today?

Nay Sayer!!!

It's still a good idea, just like the 286 intel chip was. But they need to opportunity to go next generation on the project and build a new series. In the future I think it would make more sense if NASA only built two and then started a redesign.

Actually, your CPU analogy is a very apt one. The 80286 was a terrible, terrible chip; most were used merely as a very fast 8088. Sure, it offered protected mode and with it the ability to address 16MB of memory, but since Intel assumed no one would ever want to use real mode once they tried protected, they included no way to leave protected mode! The workaround was to instruct the system (the keyboard controller actually) to do a reboot! And that 16MB of memory? If you went a byte past the top address

Actually, the lifting body and Boeing's original proposed design are both off the table; the NASA internal concept Apollo on Steroids version is being designed by both vendors to the same general specification of size, weight, etc.

all these amazing space exploration projects just give us hints at the good info. they never really reveal the outstanding stuff.

I'd love to know what you consider the "outstanding stuff" to be. The answer to life, the universe, and everything, maybe? Aliens with pointy ears? Most astronomers, astrophysicists, cosmologists, and planetary scientists would tell you that the progress that's been made just in the last decade has been nothing short of stunning.

Maybe the pioneer anomolies? How about cosmic ray research (See newest Scientific America)? How about maybe some research into living somewhere besides earth? I mean, we really are some unimaginable fraction of the universe (or even galaxy!) right now - it'd be nice to see something more. They are, after all, a SPACE agency. Space is a lot friggen more than just mars. Space is absurdely huge. Absurdely. It's difficult for you and I to imagine Pluto's distance, much less the Oort cloud's.The New Horizons pro

Sounds like you're into this more for the SF-inspired adventure than for the science. Results from COBE and WMAP have pretty much revolutionized our understanding of the Universe just in the last few years, for example. Data returned from planetary probes has been absolutely spectacular. IMHO, it would have been a tragedy to have allocated those funds to more manned space flight instead.

Space is absurdely huge. Absurdely. It's difficult for you and I to imagine Pluto's distance, much less the Oort cloud's.

You dont know what you're talking about. The space station is outdated compared to what? How can you say it's outdated if there is no other new space station with which to compare it. The fact is that space programs must use components that have a track record of stability. For instance, in 1995, would it have made sense to load Windows 95 and its fabulous new plug and play technology onto the shuttle's computers? Obviously no, that software was

I constantly hear people saying one or both of two things.1. NASA shouldn't be shooting for the Moon and Mars because it takes away from the smaller missions.2. NASA should take a lesson from the private industry on how to get to space cheap.

But isn't this exactly what government is great at. Shouldering HUGE projects that no private industry in its right mind would spend money on... Ultimatly to progress science or humanity in general. No private industry is going to beat NASA to Mars. So let them have the small missions, hell once they really get their feet under them we can even contract out the smaller missions to them. But the really big stuff like getting people to Mars is only going to get done my NASA. And sure maybe we could hold back and wait for technology to progress a bit more, but we would still be stuck in Europe if that was the case.

The one reason that government's can sometimes do things better or first is because they don't have to make a profit. Onced something is profitablt the private industries generally do something better, and one day NASA might just be a small research group that only concerns itself with the bleeding edge, unlike today when everything in space can be seen as bleeding edge.

I guess I'd be stuck in Africa, which may not be too bad for me, but a whole lot better for my great great great great great grandparents.

Yes, because in 1750, life in africa was so much better than life in America - and 1850 and 1950... Chances are, if your family would have stayed there, it would be dead by now. It's pretty safe to say that more lineages in Africa have died in the past 500 years than have lived. The problem is, however, your family would not only probably be one of those lineages that die

But isn't this exactly what government is great at. Shouldering HUGE projects that no private industry in its right mind would spend money on... Ultimatly to progress science or humanity in general.

Your argument appears to be hinged on the notion that revisiting the Moon represents "progress". It looks more like "regress" to me: boldly re-solving a technological problem that was solved in 1969 and was already considered boring by the time I was two years old.

I think you're really missing a very large point about what the government is for, and what private industry is for. Private industry is really great at putting money in forseeable goals where profit can be made. It's really bad at funding basic research in areas where there's no clear profit to be made. It's also really bad at developing anything that benefits everyone as a whole, but can't be charged for. 100 years ago what corporation would have wanted to fund some patent clerk who didn't even do any experiments and just wanted to think about the nature of light? But yet now our entire view of the Universe is different, and many of the devices you use every day rely upon an understanding of relativity.

The problem (as far as a corporation is concerned) is that in science you don't always know what you're going to find out before you find it out. Weird problems in one area can lead to huge advances of knowledge in something that's completely unrelated. That's why it's best for the government to continue funding this basic research, since it's the people that're going to eventually benefit from it, or maybe never benefit from it. What corporation wants to fund experiments counting the number of Neutrinos (very weakly interacting particles that have no forseeable practical applications) that come from the sun? No corporation in their right mind is the answer. They'll never make back money invested in it. But yet that very experiment has led to big developments in the understanding of particle physics. We now know that neutrinos have mass, and oscillate between the different types of them. And even this knowledge has no practical applications of it at all. Might it someday? Maybe, then again maybe not.

Really, the big problem with a Mars mission is you're going to waste a lot of money on one big project that could produce a LOT more scientific results if used in 100 other small projects. You'll probbably gain some technology along the way, but what do we really expect to gain scientifically from a manned Mars mission? Maybe we'll find life on Mars, and learn more about planetary geology. Is that worth scrapping all the other smaller missions? I don't think so.

What worries me about the manned Mars mission is the vast majority of the money is going to go to private industry to develop technology only suited to going to Mars. That's great if you think Science is just about making the world like Star Trek, but it isn't so good if you think science is about learning things about our universe. Don't get me wrong, I think the manned missions have some importance. I just don't think that importance overshadows the science that Nasa (and really hardly anyone else) produces.

Rubbish. Manned missions to Moon or Mars are useless scientifically. These schemes are just a large scale version of the old fashioned PR exercise. What the government is great at and should do are in fact these smaller, more theoretical projects that no one else should be interested in, and bring no immediate public adulation or commercial gain. The important experiments they are cancelling cannot be done by any private enterprise.Manned missions are only meaningful in terms of colonisation or commercial e

The problem with having private industry do the smaller missions is that NASA's smaller missions are (in general) the good ones - less about publicity and symbolism and more about real and useful scientific research. Private industry tends to not publish its research in journals and will hold its findings in secret or, worse, in patent.The primary thing to be gained by travel to space is intellectual property, which is why, until IP law gets the enormous overhaul it will need to properly balance return on

Technology should move at the speed of profitability, not humanity's best interest.

And this is exactly why there are no more antibiotics on the horizon -- much more profit in Viagra.

Sorry, government should (IMHO) take charge in those areas where something is in humanity's best interest, but is not yet profitable. Once things are profitable, the gov't can get out of the way. Private industry is too focused on short-term profit to care much about anything else.

>And this is exactly why there are no more antibiotics on the horizon -- much more profit in Viagra.

Look how popular Tamiflu is due to the threat of avian flu. Private individuals and governments are stockpiling it in large quantities. I believe the company can't make it fast enough to meet the demand right now, and it hasn't even hit. I'm quite sure that alot of companies would love to be in the same shoes and therefore there is a business/profit need for new antibiotics.

No, they are not. "By definition", they bring in more money than they cost. That does not mean they are in "humanity's best interest".

Proof: murder, robbery, and war, are all profitable, and are very much *not* in humanity's best interest.

It sounds terrible, but I am yet to hear one good reason to make antibiotics for people who can't pay.

Because sometimes it's *you* who can't pay. Ever been broke? Should you deserve to die because you got sneezed on by some unclean jerk during the short period where you didn't have enough money for medication?

If you can't keep yourself alive, you deserve to die. It's that simple.

That's nonsense. By your morals, it would be absolutely moral for someone to kill you, since it would show you are unable to "keep yourself alive", and thus "deserve to die".

What? It's OK for the government to help keep you alive with police, fire, and military? Hypocrite.

Your ideal world is the "law of the jungle". It's in the top of your list, "1. Arm Citizens". What do you think happens when a beloved family member of one of those "armed citizens" becomes deathly ill and needs medicine they can't pay for? Do you think they'll just politely die, as you think is their darwinian duty? Don't count on it.

Darwinism would suggest they take those arms and acquire what they need (or want) by force. Who are you to stop them? It's darwinism, after all.

You've got Darwin all wrong. It's not just the survival of the one with the biggest gun and the most money. It's also strength in numbers. You focus on some lazy, drug-addled, morally inept, socially obscene bum who gets free health care and cry "foul". Just like with freedom of speech, it's not there to help the undesirable elements of society, it's there to help us all. To do so, to do it right, yes, you have to protect the undesirables. But free medical care helps you, too, even if you can fully afford it on your own. Fewer people coming in to the office sick, fewer children getting sick at your school. You lessen unemployment, you lessen stress, you allow people the freedom to spend money on what they want, rather than on what they are forced to, which leads to a stronger economy and a healthier, more robust society.

It makes completely rational sense to provide the public with free access to government services, and it even makes "darwinian" sense, if you must.

Darwinism is a theory of natural law. It is not a theory of morality. In evolution, there is no such thing as humanity - it's just a temporary stage that will inevitably be replaced. There is no such notion of doing something for the good of the species, only for the propagation of one's own genes.

Saying that forms a reasonable basis for morality is like saying we should jump off a cliff because things naturally fall down.

Merely sending people up in to space isn't exploration. We've sent probes to many of the planets (Mars in paticular), and there are plans to a new space observatory. Considering the costs associated with space, I think the U.S. is doing just fine. Hell, I like to wonder, where is everyone else?

Oh, and for you anti-NASA freaks, I'd like to provide you with a link to a history of NASA's budget [wikipedia.org]. It calculates to about $3 per taxpayer per year. Compare that to the military budget, which is about 500 times higher.

It calculates to about $3 per taxpayer per year. Compare that to the military budget, which is about 500 times higher.

That's a bit of an exaggeration... NASA's share of the federal budget [kowaldesign.com] is roughly 15 billion dollars. The DOD gets 475 billion. That's closer to the neighborhood of 30 times. It's worth mentioning that the executive branch gets 25 billion a year though; About the same as the legislative branch, the judicial branch, and NASA combined... Limos and jets cost more than shuttle missions apparently.

No, the question is if. As in, "we can go to the stars, if we remain a high-technology civilization long enough to do it." I'm not convinced that we're going to be able to do that. We're making a lot of fundamental mistakes right now, mistakes with very long-term consequences.

However, to answer your question: Iran is a sovereign nation and while some people would like us to simply "put a stop" to their plans, at least as many people would be very upset with us if we did. Iran claims their nuclear technology is for peaceful use. Iraq claimed it had no weapons of mass destruction... we didn't believe that and invaded anyway and now everyone hates us for it. So what's a mother to do? If we exercise our economic and military might to deal wi

Lets compare charges for space exploration vs. defense as found in the constitution that grants powers to the federal government.

That argument is simply insane. You are talking about the same Federal Government that funded the Louisiana Purchase. The US government was spending large portions of its budget exploring and acquiring new territories before most of the current Armed Forces branches even existed.

Somebody needs to go through a bunch of these "B..b..but the Constitution says nothing about space exploration" posts with the -1,Troll stick. I don't know where this thinking is coming from, but it has no historical basis.

This is a difficult situation because the mission has a lot of merit. But it was over budget and had technical problems [spaceflightnow.com]. Something had to go in a climate of budget tightening. Most people on this forum will rail at this decision. They should blame the aimlessness of NASA's manned space program since Apollo, and credit NASA administrator Michael Griffin for doing something about it.

To hear complaints of "cost overruns" for this mission, knowing well the role that the upper NASA management played in adding to those costs is grating on the ear, I must say.
I suggest to read these links for details of the Dawn mission from Mark Sykes, the director of the Planetary Science Institute, writing to the House Science Committee Chair on Friday:
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=19838 [spaceref.com]
and his interview with the Planetary Society:
http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00000475/ [planetary.org]
As

It would be nice if there were a clear vision with set objectives for the space program. It would be nice to have some set time tables for a lunar colony or a mission to Mars.
Right now there doesn't seem to be a plan for NASA other than satellite maintainence and some miscellaneous probes/rovers.

I'll give you one. I have an idea to get into space as cheaply as a space elevator, with materials and technology we have now, I even know who would pay for its design and construction. I submitted it to slashdot as a story about a month back, but its still in the pending queue (presumably waiting for the right stories to come along). I might have to just spill it if its not posted soon, tis burning a hole in me brain. However thats neither here nor there.

Anyone else agree that if any section of NASA should be getting more money it's the JPL. Much of the increased interest in space and the last few really excellent displays of space technology (Rovers, Cassini, Deep Space 1) while the shuttle division languished in time. JIMO [wikipedia.org], one of the most fascnating and ambitious missions has had its budget sliced as well. I say we go with the most science for the buck and unmanned is the best way to get that outside of our own orbit at this point.

JPL is special in that it is run by the California Institute of Technology for NASA. JPL employees are employees of Cal-Tech, not the federal government.

JPL is much more focused and efficient then any other NASA center, and it shows. It's also the only place in the US where a space mission can go from concept, to detailed design, to fabrication, launch from KSC, and then operations are at JPL as well. End-to-end inside the JPL fenceline.

The problem is that over the last 15 years while Nasa's budget has remained relatively constant in inflation adjusted dollars we have given science more of the budget, increasing from 24% to 32% of Nasa's total budget. This extra funding for science has come from the human spaceflight budget and now we don't have enough in the human spaceflight budget for return to flight. Add in hurricane Katrina which severely damaged several shuttle facilities, our commitment to other nations to complete ISS, and the c

When the time came up to decide whether or not to give JIMO money to actually develop and build the mission beyond the concept phase, NASA shied away from it. They decided it relied too heavily on technology that is still under development like ion propulsion. Yes, both NASA and ESA have built and tested ion propelled spacecraft (like DS1), but the duration of those missions was something like 12 months each, as opposed to years, and the mass involved was fraction of JIMO's. A failure would mean the loss of

Like everyone else here, I understand the dichotomy between missions for scientific benefit and missions for inspiring mankind. Occassionally there is some crossover, but it is less common than we'd like. So when scientific missions like this asteroid one get cancelled in favor of inspiring missions like putting men on the Moon and Mars, it is easy to cry 'political agenda'. I'm not even sure htat's fair, but there it is.

But it's the missions that DO have good crossover that seem to me like they should be prioritized. And the best example I can think of are the missions to put up huge space telescopes to find a second Earth. Finding another Earth would be hugley inspiring, and as far as I understand it these scopes would be fantastic scientific instruments as well.

Am I the only one who was particularly sad to see these missions delayed?

On the other hand, the Kepler telescope is moving forward, and there is some overlap in purpose. The Kepler looks for new planets by watching for them to transit their home stars. I believe it is supposed to be capable of locating planets as small as earth, but will conduct a survey of over 100,000 stars.

The science missions were rapidly becoming useless anyway. Search for life my ass, they should have been exploring how exploitable the mineral resources were.

It's time to dump the stupid navel gazing telescopes and put some money into actually doing things in space instead of just looking at them.

If you always just claim people are too expensive to send, you aren't going to develop very good engineering and technologies to send people. I'm glad we've broken out of this loop and will actually being doing something worthwhile in space again.

yeah, all those stupid eggheads have been distracting America from it's true priorities: Kicking Mars' Ass.it's stuff like that that requires American men. you can't delegate ass-kicking to robots. unless they're awesome 50 foot tall robots with lasers shooting out their eyes.

so our path is clear: America needs to create an army of 50 foot tall robots to kick Mars' ass. there exists a robot height gap between the US and the Soviet Union that threatens our ability to kick Mars' ass.

You seem to be implying that manned missions are better preparation for eventual asteroid and moon mining. I disagree. Life support is very expensive. Remote-controlled reports with good sensors would probably make better space miners. Perfecting remote-controlled robots would go further toward the mining goal.

The science missions were rapidly becoming useless anyway. Search for life my ass, they should have been exploring how exploitable the mineral resources were.It's time to dump the stupid navel gazing telescopes and put some money into actually doing things in space instead of just looking at them.

It's morons like you who have made the U.S. fall behind in science. You see the spectacular pictures coming back from the Hubble Space Telescope and the only wonder you are filled with is wondering if there's a wa

Yeah, we're so far behind in science we remain the only nation that's ever put a man on the moon

We did that almost 40 years ago -- when we were a leader in science. In the last 30 years, we've not landed another person on the moon or any other celestial body. 36 percent of undergraduate students in the United States receive their degrees in science or engineering, compared to 59 percent of undergraduates in China and 66 percent in Japan. In 2004, the United States graduated 70,000 engineers, while China

Bush's "mission to Mars" is just his attempt to neuter NASA, long-despised by the GOP because of its ties to the Democrats (e.g., Kennedy Space Center).He will convince people (like you) that it's okay to kill off the Shuttle, the International Space Station, probes like the one being discussed here, and unmanned planetary missions -- because we're going to Mars. Then he'll use the fiscally irresponsible federal deficit spending (that he encouraged and approved) as a reason why NASA can't have enough budge

First of all, technology has improved a lot since the 1960s.There are cell phones with more computer processing powerthan all of NASA during the Apollo program.Second, to bring the cost down, we should use techniquesthat have great leverage on reducing costs. These areadvanced automation and use of local materials.

Advanced automation means instead of sending robots to aplace, you send a robot factory. Instead of sendingstructural beams to the moon, you send a magnetic sifterto separate the 0.2% iron-nicke

First of all, technology has improved a lot since the 1960s.There are cell phones with more computer processing powerthan all of NASA during the Apollo program.

A close encounter with Mars still puts it 69 million kilometers from Earth. The moon is about 385,000 kilometers away. Lighter weight computers just won't have much effect when you look at what must still be carried: Astronauts, food, water, compressed gases (for air), fuel, switches, wiring, etc. While processing power has done wonderful things

So instead of bitching about NASA draining on economy and tax money, what about donations? Can't NASA just ask for public funding through donations from multi-billion corporations? I'm sure 40 million can be used as tax write off for them. Hell, worst comes to worst, at least I don't think, I'd mind seeing "NASA - United State of America (sponsored by CocaCola, the real thing)" logo flashing next to solar panel when passing asteroid.For some reason, people tend to get more excited about silly sci-fi movi

So instead of bitching about NASA draining on economy and tax money, what about donations? Can't NASA just ask for public funding through donations from multi-billion corporations? I'm sure 40 million can be used as tax write off for them.

No. Every dollar spent by NASA must be first appropriated by Congress. If NASA sells some old hardware, or receives a donation, that money goes straight to the federal government's general fund, not to NASA.

The US should give up on NASA actually doing anything and outsource. Space probes to JPL, boosters to Energia in Russia, and everything else to China. Close most of NASA's "centers". We'd get more bang for the buck.

Out here in Silicon Valley, we have NASA Ames, which has a good wind tunnel and a large number of marginal NASA programs. The wind tunnel is worth keeping, but everything else, including the airfield, could be canned with no great loss.

For the enhancement of scientific knowlege and the required development
of advanced technology, A National Science Trust shall be established,
with funding authorized by Congress, for the purchase of information
about the natural world from Eligible Parties (private entities owned
and controlled by other such entities in the U.S. or its unified free-
trade partners). No less than 2/3 of the components and services used
by the Eligible Parties to acquire this information must be obtained
from other Eligible

Going to an asteroid made a lot of sense. The asteroid Amun, which is the smallest known metallic asteroid near Earth, has over a trillion dollars worth of metals. Mining it would pay back a hundred fold on the cost of developing the technology to do so. Instead, we have another pie-in-the-sky mission of going back to the Moon and on to Mars with no payback. It will just cost a fortune.

I'm all for going to the Moon and on to Mars, but I want a sustainable space program. I want to see us go out to space and develop the resources that are out there.

As has been pointed out on this thread, the Shuttle isn't the best way to do this. We need safe reliable transportation to space at a reasonable cost. I think the best answer is a space elevator. The folks over at www.liftport.com are working on actually building one -- well actually four of them. If LiftPort accomplishes it's goals, it will have four space elevators that will be able to carry a shuttle load of cargo to orbit on a WEEKLY basis. Since the elevator will extend out sixty thousand miles, it will also serve as an excellent launching platform for missions to anywhere in the inner solar system. The Earth's own momentum will supply the initial velocity needed.

How much of the US GDP goes to health care vs. the military? Eliminate cigarettes and alcohol and you end up with a heck of a lot of money not being spent that could be used for any number of better things.

Eliminate cigarettes and alcohol and you end up with a heck of a lot of money not being spent that could be used for any number of better things.

Such as law enforcement?

Get this very clear: ANYTIME you ban a substance or object you will ALWAYS create a blackmarket for said substance or object. Why do you think kids are killing each other on the streets today? Video games? No, it's drugs... a blackmarket that is ripe for the kind of thugs who can play the game... Do you recall prohibition at all?

Currently smokes and alcohol are a windfall for the US government considering the level of taxation as well.

But whatever, ban them, let's go back to bath tub gin (which probably caused more health problems in speak easies than what factory made alcohol causes in today's society.)

The money would also go into propping up organized crime. The original prohibition gave us the Mafia. The ban on marijuana/cocain/heroin has given us the South American based organized crime groups. Etc.I'm not sure the GP was suggesting we ban alcohol and cigarettes, but its always funny to me that in the US that we can't have, eg, higher taxes to help the poor get medical bills, because people who earn their money should get to keep it, and its not the government's job to take care of every person anyway-

You've got Google, use it. According to the budget explorer [kowaldesign.com] roughly 644 billion for health and human services and 475 billion for the DOD. And NASA? 15 billion. The Executive office of the President gets about 25 billion BTW.

Eliminate cigarettes and alcohol and you end up with a heck of a lot of money not being spent that could be used for any number of better things.

Well isn't that just a load of off topic flamebait. Yet here at Slashdot, that's what mods call Insightful!

Well, allow me to retort with a few "insightful" comments of my own. I smoke and drink and I say, go right ahead slick... You also eliminate cigarette and alcohol taxes. Oops! Forgot about that, didn't ya sport? So, your "money saved" is already being spent. Here's a better idea... Why don't we institute a fat ass tax on fast food and junk food. Then we can go for a diabeties tax on colas with caffeine... You know, those deadly addictive products with no warning labels. Then we can have All Kinds Of Extra Money to spend on things like space travel and research!... No? Don't like the idea of taxing your twinkies? Well damn! I could've sworn heart disease was the number one killer in America. Pot, meet kettle.

And those taxes are a drop in the bucket compared to the health care costs inflicted on society by smokers. Forgot about that, didn't ya sport? The median tax rate on cigarettes in the U.S. is 80 cents per pack. If you smoke a pack a day, for 30 years, you've paid $8760 in taxes. That won't come close to covering the costs for chemotherapy, heart bypass, after-stroke care, or any of the other likely results of your

Actually, no. Smokers save public health costs because they die earlier than non-smokers. Look it up.

False. The costs for smoking-related illnesses includes everything from heart-bypass operations to chemotherapy to long-term care for smokers who suffered strokes. Smokers get hospitalized more often for pneumonia, emphysema, infections, diabetes, and many other diseases and conditions than non-smokers.

You're assuming everyone who smokes is a liberal parasite on the public dole. Not necessarily true!

But after that you start losing a significant portion of the population of people - and what's the government supposed to be for - wait - let me look it up real quick...OH! It's for the people! Imagine that! Some people on earth have vices! You're perfect though - you don't cost the taxpayer anything. The world owes you! It's all those people that smoke and drink and don't run every morning before work and play rugby after work on Thursdays! They're taking all of your money! Good work, detective. You just g

It's all those people that smoke and drink and don't run every morning before work and play rugby after work on Thursdays!

No, no, the rugby is out; too easy to get hurt doing that. Come to think of it, a lot of distance runners eventually have knee problems requiring surgery, so nix that too. With everyone paying in and me as the only beneficiary (because things I do are reasonable by definition), I expect the system to work quite well, thank you!

"They would spend more time retired, receiving government payouts but not working and paying taxes. "This is already changing. Part of living longer because you don't smoke means you live healthier longer too, and so can work longer. Many people choose not to retire at age 65 then die 5 years later mostly from inactivity and boredom from not working. Improved medical care might also extend the working and healthy years for individuals.

I'm strongly in favour of restricting access to alcohol and more impor

"I'm strongly in favour of restricting access to alcohol and more importantly cigarettes. The age requirements for alcohol is already sufficient to indicate to most people that it's not to be taken lightly, but the message hasn't gotten through to smokers yet it seems, so we should put more emphasis on enforcing the age restrictions that exist, and get rid of public smoking in a lot more jurisdictions."How about we take the funds, effort, and manhours that would be put into this program and spend them findi

Believe it or not that 5 billion is not being spent on killing people. Rebuilding and effectivly running a country is expensive. Look at it this way the current national budget is 2 trillion I believe, thats 40 billion per state. Iraq has a population of 26 million (for comparison texas has a population of 20 million, california has 33 million). So that 5 billion a month = 60 a year. Yes a bit more expensive than the average state, but you have to subtract the prewar level of spending on those troops. We really should be collecting income tax from these people....:)

Interesting. At 5 billion dollars, and 26 million people, that seems to be $192.30 per Iraqi per month. As I understand it, the average person could live quite lavishly in Iraq on that kind of stipend. I'd actually rather we paid the Iraqis to live lavishly, instead of overpaying Halliburton to make American soldiers be truck drivers and security guards. Any way I can get a refund?

But the military is making the world a better world right here right now.

Oh yes. Wait - they are? I haven't seen it, have you? I give you a 20 year time frame - you give me one, just one, that's right one (1) example of a foreign country where a large problem, like a threat to us, has been solved. Until then, STFU.

You ever watch the Colbert Report? It's a hysterical political 'commentary' show following the Daily Show on Comedy Central, featuring Stephen Colbert basically pretending to be a Bill O'Reilly-esque self-centered "America'loving, liberal hating" host, while being obviously sarcastic, snarky, and pretty funny.

Anyway, he had Peggy Noonan on his show a few weeks ago, who was a speechwriter for Bush and Reagan, amonst other republicans. She was mentioning how during Bush's 2004 campaign she took a leave from her job at Wall St. Journal to work for Bush's re-election. Colbert immediately responds with "Which of Bush's many achievements made that worthwhile?" And she couldn't say anything but just smirk. She didn't even attempt any talking point of one thing Bush did, it was pretty awesome seeing her pretty uncomfortable she was in even trying to list something positive Bush achieved.

"Remember that he changed a budget surplus of almost US$ 480 billion into the greatest deficit America has ever faced."I suspect that the collapse of the stock bubble had as much of an effect on that as has Bush. Further, there was never any $480 billion surplus. When Clinton left office, there was a surplus of $86.4 billion which they characterized as a surplus of $236.2 billion (by counting the social security surplus, etc. with general receipts).

> If you think the United States economy looks like that of the third world, I invite you to leave the coma of your comfort and visit a third world country.

Let me tell you something:

When all the money being spent or a substantial amount of money to be spent MUST be borrowed from foreign governments/institutions, that looks like the third world. It has nothing to do with size at all. And that is the USA.

China, Russia, Japan and the EU now help us with our balance of payments. That's a [sad] fact. It was even speculated that China could punish us just by being stubborn by refusing to cooperate. This is exactly what the USA used to do to the 3rd world countries that it used to support financially. This time, the countries I mention above could do the same to us.

Now that sounds like the 3rd world. Do not let the skyscrappers and highways fool you. This country is sinking in debt and mismanagement. The bad thing is that it will get worse before it gets any better.

Newsflash! Contrary to popular rumors encouraged by government, NASA has always been a military "stealth" branch. It is, has been, and will always be, so might as well get over it. For glaring example,the entire size,design and configuration of the shuttle was dictated by military projects.

Having a say, and "dictating" are two different things. Only a small fraction of shuttle missions have been military-related. Having a few percent dictate the entire design would not be very rational.

"Having a say, and "dictating" are two different things. Only a small fraction of shuttle missions have been military-related. Having a few percent dictate the entire design would not be very rational."

Military mission needs contributed a great deal to the design of our current vehicle, and the Air Force was heavily involved in the process. In fact, the shuttle was about to start launching military missions from CA's Vandenberg Air Force Base when Challenger happened. Most people don't realize the amou